I just thought I should put that out there officially. The fact that nobody even reads this blog pretty much validates that decision.

It seems that's the first place everyone's mind is going when they learn about my recent award. When my Uncle Mell e-mailed me to congratulate me, his subject line read "Vote for Michael". That's exactly the same phrase exclaimed today by one of the funders performing a monitoring site visit at work when he learned about the honor.

As I said to my uncle, I couldn't even get elected dogcatcher. Especially not dogcatcher.

My personal identity would be too much of a turn off to too many members of whatever electorate we're talking about, regardless of how smart, charming and skilled I am. Most voters would see me as just a homo-judeo-atheist and that would be the end of their consideration of my candidacy. I don't believe voters would immediately jump to that conclusion, but I've seen plenty of candidates like me get demonized into obscurity by their opponents. It's a detestable but successful strategy. I could fight it, but I'd rather run a campaign on issues, not on my identity.

Now this is not to say I wouldn't run for something in the future, but for now I'll stick with helping other people get elected to offices.